


Makkachin and Me

by wincechesters



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Makkachin doesn't die I promise, Post-Series, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 08:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10330229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincechesters/pseuds/wincechesters
Summary: “A puppy, Vitya,” Yakov continues disbelievingly. His arms are crossed over his barrel of a chest, and his face is set into even more disapproving lines than usual as he watches the spectacle before him. “This is a new level of stupid, even for you. When will you even have time to care for him? I’m not going to let you out of practice just because you have a dog to look after.”“I can pay someone to walk him while I’m gone during the day. Besides, Makkachin is a good boy, aren’t you, Makkachin? Yes you are.” Already he’s got Victor wrapped around his little paw, and Victor takes him back, tucking his face into curly brown fur to inhale that fresh, new puppy smell, and laughing when the puppy nibbles curiously at the long strands of his hair.He straightens, turning to his coach with a bright smile. “Honestly, Yakov, how hard could it be?”----In which Victor is woefully unprepared to be responsible for a dog, but bringing Makkachin home somehow still ends up being one of the best decisions he's ever made.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yfoom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yfoom/gifts).



> Alternatively titled _There Are No Bad Dogs, Only Bad Victors_.
> 
> This ficlet features Victor/Yuuri in the last section but is primarily about Victor and Makkachin. 
> 
> For Moofy, because she did [this](https://twitter.com/moooofyy/status/835938859724636160) and gave me all these ideas and feelings in the first place. Also inspired by [that one art by Hachi which made me die okay](https://twitter.com/kurageclear/status/816642816650649600), and beta’d as always by the incomparable Meg <3.
> 
> Title is from Marley and Me, but FEAR NOT. Makkachin is 12000% immortal, it is known.

“You’re an idiot,” Yakov says.

Victor’s barely listening, his face turned towards the eight-week-old, tiny ball of brown fluff in his arms, who is currently licking frantically at his cheek. Yakov is the only one in the entire rink who isn’t enchanted; Oksana and little Mila are cooing delightedly at the puppy and even Georgi looks charmed, hovering behind the girls with a smile on his severe face.  

“He’s so cute!” Mila squeals and Victor resoundingly agrees.

“A puppy, Vitya,” Yakov continues disbelievingly. His arms are crossed over his barrel of a chest, and his face is set into even more disapproving lines than usual as he watches the spectacle before him. “This is a new level of stupid, even for you. When will you even have time to care for him? I’m not going to let you out of practice just because you have a dog to look after.”

Victor lets Mila extract the puppy from his arms, laughing when the puppy plants both paws on her face, burying his sniffing nose in her bouncy red curls and making her giggle.

“I can pay someone to walk him while I’m gone during the day. Besides, Makkachin is a good boy, aren’t you, Makkachin? Yes you are.” He tickles under the puppy’s chin, and his heart swells with the excited way Makkachin wiggles in Mila’s skinny arms, squirming towards his new owner. Already he’s got Victor wrapped around his little paw, and Victor takes him back, tucking his face into curly brown fur to inhale that fresh, new puppy smell, and laughing when the puppy nibbles curiously at the long strands of his hair.

He straightens, turning to his coach with a bright smile. “Honestly, Yakov, how hard could it be?”

Yakov looks like he’s going to explode, which happens on a near daily basis, so Victor thinks nothing of it. He seems to struggle to find words, his entire craggy head getting redder and redder until it almost seems to swell like some rapidly inflating balloon. “You’re an idiot,” Yakov repeats finally, his voice a growl of barely restrained frustration. “Now put him away and go get changed. Practice starts in five minutes.”

*****

Victor is an idiot.

The first few days with Makkachin had been wonderful. He slept curled up next to Victor in his bed, waking him with kisses for his morning walk. He comes home from skating practice no longer to an empty apartment but to the puppy greeting him at the door, excited and so pleased to see him, licking and pawing at his face when Victor scoops him up in his arms, dropping his bag on the floor in favor of cuddling his new companion.

Of course, that’s before Makkachin decides that things left on the floor, even things left there because his owner couldn’t wait to spend time with him, are things left for him to get into. Victor learns of this new preoccupation when he gets out of the shower to find all his dirty clothes from practice one afternoon spread around his living room, Makkachin perched happily in the middle of them chewing happily on a pair of Victor’s sweaty socks.

It’s funny at the time, and Victor laughs and takes photo after photo because Makkachin is adorable, a fact with which his fans on his Facebook page emphatically agree.

Of course it doesn’t stop with socks. There are expensive leather gloves and cashmere sweaters and more pairs of shoes than Victor can count, all of which fall victim to growing, teething Makkachin. And no matter how diligent Victor (eventually, after the third pair of his favorite Gucci loafers) learns to be in putting things away, out of reach of his boisterous new companion, Makkachin finds a way.

He is also growing faster than Victor can believe, despite having met both the puppy’s parents when he picked Makkachin up from his breeder, and with the increase in size and absolutely no decrease in energy comes destruction. He comes home to find his furniture askew, his Persian rug torn to shreds, a cupboard door swinging mournfully from its hinges. His dog walker gives him increasingly judgemental looks when she comes to pick up Makkachin for his morning walk and Makkachin still can’t walk nicely on his leash, because Victor hasn’t had the time to train him. She threatens to quit (again), and he only manages to convince her to stay on by busting out his very best, most charmingly sorrowful eyes.

And then there’s the day Victor turns his back for one second—he swears, it was just one second—and Makkachin is swinging around his new Burberry scarf, flailing joyfully around the living room with the thing flapping out of his mouth. Victor has a moment of pure horror during which everything seems to shift into slow motion. He reaches out abortively but he’s powerless to stop it when Makkachin plows into the side table in its place beside the couch, knocking four half-read books onto the ground along with the nearby lamp. The lightbulb in the lamp shatters, and that’s when Victor finally springs into motion with a cry, sweeping Makkachin off his feet and away from the broken glass now positively littering the floor.

He spends the next hour with Makkachin locked in his bathroom, meticulously picking up pieces of the shattered lightbulb and using his (mostly decorative) vacuum cleaner to get rid of the shards too small to see. Afterwards, he lets Makkachin out of the bathroom and the poodle bounds up to him like he hasn’t just terrorized Victor’s apartment to the point of decimation. Victor laughs in spite of himself, because he is, in fact, the biggest sucker ever, scooping Makkachin up off the floor and accepting the frantic reunion licks his companion bestows upon him.

It isn’t until weeks later, when Victor wakes up from a dead sleep to the ominous sound of dog molars working away at leather and launches himself from the comfort of his bed to discover Makkachin mutilating his skates that he realizes something has to change.

He’s glad his apartment is well sound-proofed, because the yell he lets out would have woken anyone else in earshot otherwise. He throws himself across the floor to yank his skate from the dog’s mouth, shoving his fingers between his jaws to pry them open and inspect them for injury. Makkachin flails against him, whining.

“Shhh, shhh,” Victor hushes him with a calm he doesn’t feel, turning Makkachin’s open mouth towards the light to check for cuts from the blades of his skates, only releasing him when he’s sure his dog is unharmed. The laces and uppers of the skate Makkachin had been working on are a lost cause, and Victor feels a pang of loss for the perfectly bumped-out, custom shaped, meticulously broken-in skate, but it can be replaced. Makkachin can’t.

He’s too keyed-up from his midnight panic to go back to sleep, so he tangles his sleep-mussed hair into a haphazard bun, throwing the baggiest sweater he can find over his bare chest and rumpled sleep pants, and takes Makkachin for a walk. The street below his apartment is well-lit, the streetlamps casting a warm yellow glow on empty sidewalks. Normally the scene would be calming and welcoming for Victor, who is no stranger to late nights in St. Petersburg, but tonight he can’t settle the tightness in his chest, the worry resting heavy on his shoulders and flattening his mouth into a thin line. This is the first time he has ever been truly bad at something he wanted, the first time that the wanting and his determination alone hadn't been enough to make it work.

“What am I going to do with you, Makkachin?” Victor asks the poodle, who ignores him in favor of sniffing obliviously at a nearby fence post, fluffy tail wagging blissfully. Victor sighs out a mixture of affection and frustration, raking a hand through the flyaway strands of his hair that have escaped the band around it, dragging it back away from his face.

For the first time that he will willingly admit to, if only to himself, he questions whether he made the right decision in bringing home a dog. Maybe Yakov was right—another thing he would never utter in the presence of another human being—and he doesn’t have the time to commit to a dog. His mind skitters around thoughts he’s too selfish to examine, that maybe _he’s_ not the right fit for a dog, that Makkachin would be better off without him. It hadn’t been so bad when it was just _things_ being ruined, but Makkachin could have hurt himself today. He can always buy new clothes, new shoes, even new skates, but Victor would never forgive himself if Makkachin was injured because of him. It’s a miracle it hasn’t happened yet, and he’s not willing to take the chance.

One thing is for certain, debates about Yakov being right aside: Victor has never been so woefully unprepared for anything in his life.

He looks up at the sound of scuffing footsteps approaching, moving off to one side of the sidewalk to let a woman jog past, her ponytail bouncing with each step. He’s too tired to be The Pride of Russia tonight, but he flashes her the friendliest smile he can manage, the expression automatic but feeling strained on his face. Thankfully all she does is nod back perfunctorily and then she’s gone, leaving him alone with Makkachin on the street.

They walk until Victor feels his broken sleep start to weigh on him, until Makkachin’s bounds have settled into a bouncy trot at his side. It’s still dark by the time they wind up back at Victor’s apartment, but the edges of the sky are starting to bleed into lighter blue, the rising sun peeking from between buildings to stain it soft and dilute.

Victor doesn’t bother to strip out of his sweater, just toes out of his shoes and trudges back to his bedroom, casting a mournful glance at the closed closet door, behind which he’s tucked his decimated skates onto the highest shelf to be dealt with in the morning. He tugs the band out of his hair and collapses face first on the bed with a groan. There are only three hours left until he has to get up to prepare for skating practice, and to come up with an excuse as to why he’s skating in his old backup skates rather than the custom ones with the gold blades he loves so much, because hell if he’s going to admit to Yakov that he can’t handle his puppy. He intends to use those hours to get as much sleep as he can.

The bed dips with a sudden weight as forty pounds of standard poodle puppy bounds up onto the bed with him. Makkachin steps on his back, his arm, his hair, turning four times in a circle before curling up beside him, a solid warmth pressed reassuringly into the curve of his side. Victor twists, wincing as he extracts his hair from under Makkachin, turning his body to fit them more comfortably together in the bed.

He wants to be mad—at his dog, at himself, at stupid Yakov who thinks he knows everything—but Makkachin raises his head to place a lick on Victor’s cheek before settling his head back on his paws and Victor can’t help but smile. It’s a tired smile, exhausted from more than just lack of sleep, but it’s real, and Victor feels the tension ease from between his brows. He curls himself around Makkachin, draping an arm over his dog and pulling the covers up over them both.

“You’re a good boy, Makkachin. Sometimes you get into trouble,” he amends, carding his fingers through Makkachin’s curly coat, “but I’m still glad I have you.” He kisses the top of Makkachin’s head, and he feels the dog’s contented sigh against his chest and under his arm.

“I’ll do better from now on,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. “I promise.”

*****

The next day, Victor shows up at practice with Makkachin in tow, and Yakov looks like he’s going to start spouting steam out of his ears. Naturally, Victor ignores his irate coach in favor of ensconcing Makkachin in one of the penalty boxes used by the hockey teams that take over the rink in the evenings and on Saturdays. Victor feels pretty proud of himself as he examines the battered, hard plastic, Makkachin-proof walls of the box, and he leaves Makkachin with a rope toy and a healthy chew his dog walker had recommended, tying his hair up in a ponytail behind his head and skating out to join his fuming coach and laughing teammates on the ice.

It’s a good practice and not even Yakov can complain about his performance—except for maybe when he flubs his triple toe like a novice because Makkachin is peering over the boards at him, nose pressed mournfully to the glass like one of his (many) adoring fans. Even so, he focuses better than he has in weeks, knowing he’s not going to come home to a destroyed house or an injured dog. The day passes with no casualties aside from the hockey puck one of the teams had left wedged behind a bench, and Victor cleans up the shredded mess of black rubber after practice and hopes no one will miss it. Makkachin gets more attention than he has in months, and they walk home together, happy and tired, to devour dinner side by side and collapse into bed.

Makkachin starts coming along on his daily runs, and the dog walker picks him up from the rink for his afternoon walk instead of from Victor’s apartment. Victor spends too much time on the internet on his days off, watching training videos that he imitates—albeit badly—until Makkachin can sit and lie down on command and also, inexplicably, play dead. That one takes weeks to train but it gets them both a lot of attention and about two thousand likes on Facebook, so really—worth it. It becomes clear after months of video-watching and book-reading and hideously inept training that Makkachin is a hell of a lot smarter than he is, which turns out to be a good thing because he learns fast, even though Victor still sucks at being The Boss.

That’s not to say it’s without incident—Victor still loses the occasional glove or shoe to his dog’s busy teeth, and once even his entire takeout dinner when he pauses mid-meal to take a call from a sports journalist from a local news station. It’s hard work and Victor spends more days frustrated than he doesn’t, but he doesn’t quit, and every night he curls up with soft, brown fur to rake his fingers through and the warm weight of Makkachin next to him to keep his king-sized bed from feeling too empty.

And nearly a year later, he still can’t for the life of him stop Makkachin from jumping on him. “You spoil that dog,” Yakov grumbles, arms crossed over his chest in disapproval as Victor lets Makkachin out of the penalty box one afternoon only to be bowled over, laughing, onto his back on the ice.

“He’s the best boy, he deserves to be spoiled!” Victor scrubs his gloved hands through Makkachin’s coat, and he laughs even harder when Makkachin licks his face like he’d been separated from him by an ocean rather than just a partition of glass and plastic. He pushes his dog away so that he can get to his feet, and Makkachin follows him, slipping and skidding, to the other side of the rink to where his skate guards are perched, waiting, on the boards.

Yakov grunts. “It’s nice to see you taking responsibility for _something_ , Vitya,” he says, and it almost sounds approving.

Victor basks in the warm swell of feeling in his chest at Yakov’s words as he snaps on his skate guards and steps off the ice, slinging an arm around an unyielding Yakov’s shoulders. “That sounded like a compliment, Yakov,” he teases, and he laughs when Makkachin tries to jump all over Yakov, ignoring his gruff protests.

“I take it back,” Yakov grumbles. “He’s still just as insufferable as you are.” But he submits to the sideways half-hug Victor gives him and even rubs a hand gruffly over Makkachin’s head before pushing them both away.

When Victor walks home from the rink that evening, it’s with Makkachin bounding loose at his side, never straying far from his owner. It’s been a long summer, and Victor can’t claim to be any kind of expert dog trainer, but Makkachin is safe, and behaved enough that they can live together with a relative lack of incidents. He doesn’t always need a leash, keeping close to Victor’s side, and if he’s a little over exuberant at times, well, Victor appreciates his enthusiasm.

A breeze rustles through the dried and cracking leaves still clinging gamely to the trees that line the street, bringing with it a gust of autumn chill. It ruffles Makkachin’s coat, shaggy and in need of a trim, and Victor shivers, pulling the wings of his coat in tighter around himself. They’d spent the summer training together, Victor on the ice with Makkachin waiting for him at rinkside with the ever-expanding patience of maturity and practice, and both of them at home learning the basic obedience and manners that Victor can clumsily impart on his companion. They’d both come a long way, Victor thinks, in more ways than one, and he feels an impossible affection when he calls and Makkachin comes bounding back, tongue lolling happily from his mouth, to Victor’s side.

But now October is well underway, his programs finally coming together to the point that even Yakov had been unable to criticize them, and Victor finds himself aboard a plane en route to the USA and Skate America, the first of his two Grand Prix series qualifiers. The figure skating season is short but intense, with barely time between competitions to perfect and refine his programs, to take them to the next level for each event. His bruises aren’t even fully healed before he’s back on the ice in front of the crowds in France, and then in South Korea for the Final, showing them a harder program each time, surprising them any way he can.

He likes competition season, likes the pace and the challenge, the adulation and attention. He drinks too much alcohol partying with his fellow skaters, talks to reporters and fans and poses for photo after photo with his medals. His home is barely lived-in, and for five months out of the year, he can almost—almost, but not quite—forget how lonely he is.

By the time the Russian Championships draw to a close, Victor returns home with four more medals to his name, a new sponsorship deal in negotiations, and a spot at World’s in March. He’d celebrated his birthday with the rest of his team and fellow Russian figure skaters in Kazan by getting spectacularly drunk at the banquet, and he’s still nursing a bit of a hangover when the taxi bearing him and Yakov pulls to a stop outside of his apartment building.

The driver pops the trunk and Yakov stumps out of the cab behind him, ignoring his half-hearted protests, and helps him drag his suitcase out of the trunk. They set it down together in the light dusting of snow that has lined the streets, and Victor practically flops forward into a hug, draping himself over Yakov.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, and presses a kiss to his coach’s weathered cheek. “I will see you tomorrow, yes?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Yakov says in an unexpected display of gruff charity, patting Victor heavily on the back. “And try not to drink too much. I know it was just your birthday, Vitya, but we have work to do before the European Championships.”

Victor smiles tiredly. “Okay, Yakov. Goodnight.”

Yakov gives a curt nod and starts back toward the cab before pausing to turn around. “Do you want—I could. Give you some company.”

An ache starts up in Victor’s chest, Yakov’s words a reminder of what he doesn’t have, that even his coach can see it. But he’s not so pathetic as to keep his coach from his wife any more than he already does just so he can pretend he’s not alone for one more day. He forces a smile.“Go home, Yakov. Lilia is waiting.”

The glance Yakov gives him is searching, but then he nods again and slides back into the cab without another word. Victor watches the taillights of the car until long after it has disappeared down the street.

He drags his suitcase up the steps, all of his limbs heavy with weariness. His feet are bruised and scraped inside his shoes, the soles throbbing, and there’s a new bruise blooming on his hip where he’d flubbed a jump during practice. He’s looking forward to collapsing into his own bed, and it feels like weeks and weeks since he’s been home. Still, at least he had been with sort-of friends for his birthday this year, a luxury he doesn’t always get to enjoy. His life is skating, his friends are all skaters he sees a few times a year, and his family is—well. It’s Yakov and Georgi and Oksana and Alexei and little Mila (not so little now that she’s shot up a few inches and is suddenly taller than all the girls in her grade, she is quick to remind them.)

The key scrapes against the knob as he fumbles with tired hands to get it into the lock, and he nudges the door open with his shoulder as he wrestles the suitcase inside. He barely gets the door shut before he is bowled up against it, his arms filled with seventy pounds of fluffy, over-enthusiastic affection that proceeds to exuberantly wash his entire face.

“Makkachin,” he laughs, and he can’t even be upset that he’ll have a new bump come tomorrow where the back of his head connected with the door, or that he still hasn’t managed to teach Makkachin not to jump up. He’s too happy and too grateful to worry about any of that, because he realized he forgot someone when he was listing off the members of his family.

He leaves his suitcase in the entryway and bundles Makkachin into the bedroom, depositing him on the bed and leaving him only to change out of his street clothes and brush his teeth and his masses of travel-tangled hair. When he crawls into bed it’s with his dog at his side, and it’s not the same as having a person to come home to, but he’s glad, nonetheless.

“I missed you,” he whispers. “Thank you for always being here.” Victor curls an arm around his dog, and Makkachin’s tail thumps, rhythmic steady wags against the bed in time with Victor’s breath.

*****

Year after year, Victor spends October through March skating, and he goes from medaling more often than not to becoming a shoo-in for gold. Competition after competition he tops the podium, his streak culminating in a gold medal at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, cementing his place as the legend of Russia. He’s running out of ways to surprise the audience, and winning gold medal after gold medal doesn’t hold the same appeal it used to. After all, he’s the top of the sport but what does he have to show for it? A closet full of gold medals, the ribbons fraying and faded with age, a couple of World Records, fifteen thousand followers on Twitter and forty thousand on Instagram, an empty apartment with no one but a dog to come home to. He doesn’t know where to go from here, has even considered—in his more melancholy moments—that it might be time to retire.

And that’s when Katsuki Yuuri blazes into Victor’s life like a hurricane.

Victor returns home from the Grand Prix Final in Sochi with his fifth consecutive GPF gold, and tells Makkachin all about the Japanese figure skater who had downed sixteen glasses of champagne at the banquet and proceeded to challenge Yuri to a dance off, to dance with Victor, to dance with _Chris_ on a goddamned _pole_. And then—Victor still isn’t sure he hasn’t dreamed this part—he’d topped it all off by grinding up against Victor and begging him to be his coach.

To say he was _shook_ , as Mila had so eloquently and bewilderingly put it on their plane ride back to St. Petersburg, was an understatement.

“I’m in love,” he tells his dog with the willful mournfulness of the hopelessly romantic, flopping back onto his back on his bed. He flips through the banquet pictures on his phone for the thousandth time: photos he’d taken himself, photos he’d gotten from Chris and Yuri by way of sheer stubbornness and dogged, purposeful irritation. Makkachin wiggles up beside him and rolls hopefully onto his back, presenting his belly for scratches and nudging at the hand holding his phone until Victor laughs and gives in.

There are limits, it seems, to even Makkachin’s capacity to listen to his owner wax poetic about his stolen heart and the man who had stolen it.

Still, Makkachin is there, curled up with him on the couch, when he finds and watches the video of the same Japanese skater performing his own routine months later. (Or rather, Makkachin is there when he has the video tweeted to him approximately four thousand times and texted to him by Chris, Yuri and Mila all in rapid succession, and finally opens it to watch with shocked, astonished rapture as the skater who had danced with him and grinded up against him at the GPF banquet had skated his routine with a beauty that shook him all over again.) He’s there when Victor makes the impulsive decision to uproot himself in the middle of choreographing his short program for a season he isn’t even sure he will be competing in to fly to Hasetsu, Japan, to coach one Katsuki Yuuri on his way to the Grand Prix Final.

Makkachin is only there for some of the moments during which Victor falls in love for real, and he nearly upsets everything in the middle of the Rostelecom Cup by stealing some steamed buns back at Yu-topia and getting them stuck in his throat. But he makes it through the surgery, and he’s there when Yuuri and Victor reunite, the first time Yuuri says something that sounds like a marriage proposal, the first time Victor knows without a doubt that he’s completely and utterly lost.

And finally, he’s there when Yuuri agrees to come back with them to St. Petersburg.

Victor has been gone for the better part of the year, and the first thing he does once they’ve recovered from their jet lag is text his long-suffering dog walker. She tells him she’s finally retired since he’d been gone, but she missed Makkachin and will make an exception for him. She shows up the day of their first practice with a hug for Makkachin, a cuff on the shoulder for Victor, a kind smile for Yuuri when Victor introduces him as his fiancé.

(Victor tells her it’s his own charm that she missed. She laughs in his face.)

It takes some time for them all to adjust, living together in Victor’s apartment being entirely different than the inn at Hasetsu filled with Yuuri’s family and guests alike, or the myriad hotel rooms they’d stayed at together over the past several months. Yuuri learns quickly that he can’t leave food out unattended, but somehow he manages to keep Makkachin from even trying to steal it when he’s in the room, even if his back is turned. Victor watches this day in and day out with the same incredulous expression pasted on his face, wondering who had stolen his dog and perhaps replaced him with a perfectly-behaved replica.

Of course, the day he tries it himself, Makkachin has one of his reheated pirozhki (a gift from Yuri’s grandfather) off the table and devoured in two bites.

Then there’s the time that Yuuri comes home from picking up groceries and Makkachin goes bounding to the door, only to skid to a perfect sit in front of him, his tail beating frantically against the hardwood floor. Yuuri manages to deposit the groceries on the counter, shed his coat and his shoes before bending to engulf Makkachin in a hug, all without being knocked over or otherwise assaulted in any way, and Victor is astounded.

“How did you do that?” he demands, shoving aside the book he’d been reading.

Yuuri looks up, startled, to blink gorgeously at him through his blue-framed glasses. “What? Get him to sit?” Victor nods and Yuuri looks puzzled. “You just have to be firm with him, Victor. Let him know who’s in charge.”

Victor experiences two conflicting feelings all at once. The first is indignance that Yuuri could so easily tame his wild beast of a dog, when he himself had taken years and at least ten thousand dollars of designer clothing and a pair of priceless custom skates to get him to the point where he could be trusted not to tear their home down around Victor’s ears.

The other makes Victor lick his lips and stare at Yuuri in a way that makes Yuuri blush, and results in the groceries being hastily stowed away and Makkachin locked in the bathroom to whine and scratch at the door for the next hour while his owners are engaged in other activities.

They are as busy as Victor had ever been, with only weeks until Yuuri’s next competition and Victor’s return to the rink, but they manage it. They fall into bed exhausted more often than not, but there’s a fullness to Victor’s life that he’s never had before—not when he broke world records, or won gold medals, or bought expensive things to fill his empty house with. He has Yuuri now, and a ring on his finger which tells him every day that he’ll have him forever. And through it all, Makkachin has been there, just as he is now.

Once upon a time, Makkachin would have been the one waking them up in the mornings, insisting on an early morning walk, or his breakfast, or with the ever-ominous sound of doggy destruction happening in the near vicinity. Now of the three of them Victor almost always wakes first, and today is no exception. He blinks himself awake to a bedroom just fuzzy with the first light of the day, warm with sleep and with the heat of his companions next to him. His enormous king-sized bed feels almost too small now— _almost_ too small, Victor thinks, but he wouldn’t have it any other way—with Yuuri splayed adorably across it and Makkachin flopped in the blanket-less space next to him. One of Yuuri’s hands is stretched into the tiny space between himself and Victor, and the other is tangled loosely in the coat on the top of Makkachin’s head. Victor smiles to see them like that, propping himself up on one elbow to get a better look.

Makkachin feels the movement and lifts his head, Yuuri’s hand flopping back down onto the bed. Yuuri snorts a little but doesn’t wake, turning to shift closer to Victor’s heat even in his sleep. Victor smiles and replaces Yuuri’s hand with his, stroking gently through the fluffy curls of light brown fur on the top of Makkachin’s head.

Makkachin sighs a contented doggy sigh, dropping his head to rest comfortably on Yuuri’s shoulder. There’s something about the gesture—the easy, comfortable way Makkachin interacts with Yuuri and Yuuri with him, the way they all fit together here, in this place that had once felt so empty and confining, like a cage to contain the prize of Russia—that makes Victor’s chest ache, and he slides in closer to Yuuri, reaching to drape his arm over his fiancé and his dog.

They should be getting up soon: both Yuuri and Victor have practice, and before that all three of them need to go for a run, and eat a good breakfast, and Yakov will be expecting them at the rink by 9 am. But Victor can’t bring himself to bestir them, too content, his heart too full of something he didn’t ever know he’d have.

“Five more minutes,” he bargains with himself, the words barely a whisper. He strokes a hand down Makkachin’s side, closes the last bare inches to press a kiss to Yuuri’s hair. He shuts his eyes, a smile curling on his lips.

Beside them both, Makkachin’s tail thumps, steady and constant, against the mattress.

**Author's Note:**

> This is written from only about 92% personal experience it's fine.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading <3\. Find me on twitter @maccachino!


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